Murdo Girl…

I don’t even know what to call this. Our miss Murdo Girl said she couldn’t have attention deficit disorder because she had been vaccinated for it at the Murdo Auditorium. I think it could be time for a booster shot. Maybe when she gets settled into her summer routine, she’ll be more focused…Maybe

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I found some stuff in the Aldens catalog I want to buy. Next year I’ll be in high school so I need to start firming up my style. There’s a girl who’s a sophomore, that I’m going to model myself after. (I think.) She’s a cheerleader. I have been a cheerleader since the 4th grade, but I won’t be one next year, because they don’t let freshmen be cheerleaders. They vote in the spring for the next year, and they won’t let 8th graders run. I guess since we’re still 8th graders, we’re not considered high school cheerleading material.

Anyway, I’m not going to think about that now, I’m too busy dreading the summer. I have to rent Motel rooms at night, then clean them the next morning. I sometimes get a late start cleaning, because the tourists will have had some time to think about how much I charged them, or maybe their ice wasn’t cold enough. I don’t want to start cleaning until after they’re all gone. The last thing I need is to run into a mad tourist. I’ll make good money, but I know I will earn every penny.. I wish I could work at the Frosty like Connie Jackson. In the summer, all the kids hang out there at night and after the show on the week-ends.

Mom thinks I must not clean the rooms very good because I’m fast. I’ve told her I have a method. Even though she can’t find one thing wrong with the rooms I clean, she wants it to take me longer. I’m sure it bothers her because she pays by the room and not by the hour. She even has Gertie (Oldencamp) Smith, who cleans the other rooms, spy on me. I don’t think it’s really fair of Mom to ask that of Gertie, because she gets paid by the room too, and shouldn’t have to waste her time spying on me. Gertie has three kids to take care of, and two of them are a real handful.

We have a phone in the office/unit #1 now, which is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that if I need something to eat or a tourist needs ice, I can call Mom. The curse is, when Mom gets worried about the rent being too low. She calls me and if I’m too busy showing rooms to answer, she comes out of the basement house and signals to me.This is beyond confusing. Sometimes, when I’m walking a tourist to show them a room, she comes outside and motions thumbs up and 2 fingers. The room can be $22.00 when the people see it, and $24.00 by the time we get back to the office. Then I have to figure sales tax to add on. The tourists can get pretty frustrated, but I think they just chock it up to my obvious youthfulness and don’t complain. If their face starts getting really red, I tell them we take checks. I tell them they can give me a check if they try to pay with a credit card too, because Mom’s not messing with credit cards, she likes to deal in cash.

This is Billy sitting in one of our rooms. He has never had to rent one out in his whole life.

I get paid by the room when I rent them too. When the town is full of tourists in July and August, it’s like an invasion. Cars, cars, and more cars a far as you can see. I can fill -up, close- up, give Mom her money, get paid, and be at the Frosty by 8:30 or 9:00. The Frosty is hooked on to the Super Value, and it’s not very far to walk. My favorite thing to get at the Frosty is a barbecue sandwich, and a chocolate-cherry coke.

On the slow nights when I’m working too late to eat at the Frosty, Mom cooks. I have to say, I get a great meal. She fixes steak or fried chicken, corn on the cob, macaroni salad, and toast. I have to eat it in the bathroom area, so the tourists don’t see me, but I’m sure they can smell it and see the corn in my teeth. Sometimes, I have to tell myself, “Oh well, I’ll never see these people again, because no one ever comes back here.”

It’s hard work, and I don’t make the kind of money the waitresses at Cafe 16 do, but I’m too young to get hired on there anyway.

Mom at the Chalet Motel

I don’t think Mom is going to let me have another dog. She says we live too close to the highway, and with all the tourists, it would surely meet it’s demise, just like Berferd. I don’t really like cats, and I got bit by an iguana once. I really didn’t want to hold it, because I don’t favor reptiles, but it was a kid of a friend of Mom’s, so I held it to be nice. I was sitting on the couch when I was holding it, and I leaned over to scoot up, and the stupid thing bit me on the nose. It was awful, because for awhile, my eyes picked up on the huge red teeth-marks and scabs. I couldn’t look at anything without seeing my nose. I feel sorry for people with great big noses or a wart they can’t get rid of. Can you imagine seeing that in your line of vision all the time? When It started to heal up and I didn’t see it so much, other people still noticed it. A man standing behind me in Super Value started staring at me. He finally said, “How does one do that to one’s nose?”

At the end of the summer, I have to fly on Western Airlines to New York. My Uncle Chuck Francis lives there and he’s arranging everything. He wants my cousins, Abby and Paul to get to know me. I don’t want to go. I hear the workers at Western Airlines might go on strike, which would be fine with me. What if I crash and burn in an airplane before I can even experience high school?

I had Mom hold some money out of my pay, and she wrote a check for me to send with my order to Aldens. I can’t wait for it to get here. I think the outfit and shoes I picked out look like something Connie Jackson would wear. I wonder how old she was when she firmed up her style. She is a trendsetter and always looks perfect. I don’t know if her style will work for me, and I’ll have to cut my hair short again, but I’m going to give it a try.

Well, I goofed up, because the lady wants me to write about more people and not always about myself. She also tells me to write what I know about, which is me, so she needs to cut me some slack.

Here are some more people. These are all the cousins that have worked for Mom at some time or another.

Mark Sanderson, Valerie Leckey, Stephanie Miller, and Andrea Miller all worked for Mom.

This lady worked there for a little while too, but she was a royal pain.

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5 thoughts on “Murdo Girl…You name it”

Valerie HallaMay 23, 2016 / 10:37 pm

I can just envision the motel as you write about the tv, the phone, your Mom coming up from the basement and the prices. It was a busy tourist time in Murdo in July and August and your motel was beautiful! Liked the lady who was a royal pain! I never worked with her though!